Introduction

https://travis-ci.org/moskytw/clime.png

Clime lets you convert any module into a multi-command CLI program with zero configuration.

Here is a slide which introduces you to Clime:

The main features:

  1. It works well with zero configuration. Free you from the configuration hell.
  2. Docstring (i.e., help text) is just configuration. When you finish your docstring, the configuration of aliases and metavars is also finished.
  3. It generates usage for each command automatically.

It is a better choice than the heavy optparse or argparse for most of CLI tasks.

CLI-ize ME!

Let me show you Clime with an example.

We have a simple script with a docstring here:

# file: repeat.py

def repeat(message, times=2, count=False):
    '''It repeats the message.

    options:
        -m=<str>, --message=<str>  The description of this option.
        -t=<int>, --times=<int>
        -c, --count
    '''

    s = message * times
    return len(s) if count else s

After we add this line:

import clime.now

See also

clime.now describes more about how to customize your program.

Our CLI program is ready!

$ python repeat.py twice
twicetwice

$ python repeat.py --times=3 thrice
thricethricethrice

It also generates a pretty usage for this script:

$ python repeat.py --help
usage: [-t <int> | --times=<int>] [-c | --count] <message>
   or: repeat [- t<int> | --times=<int>] [-c | --count] <message>

If you have a docstring in your function, it also shows up in usage manual with --help.

$ python repeat.py repeat --help
usage: [-t <int> | --times=<int>] [-c | --count] <message>
   or: repeat [-t <int> | --times=<int>] [-c | --count] <message>

It repeats the message.

options:
    -m=<str>, --message=<str>  The message.
    -t=<int>, --times=<int>
    -c, --count

You can find more examples in the clime/examples.

See also

Command describes more about how it works.

Installation

Clime is hosted on two different platforms, PyPI and GitHub.

Install from PyPI

Install Clime from PyPI for a stable version:

$ sudo pip install clime

If you don’t have pip, execute

$ sudo apt-get install python-pip

to install pip on Debian-base Linux distribution.

Get Clime from GitHub

If you want to follow the latest version of Clime, use

$ git clone git://github.com/moskytw/clime.git

to clone a Clime repository, or download manually from GitHub.

Take a Deeper Look

If you want to know more about Clime, here are the details:

Indices and tables